


your darkness has found a kindred spirit

by crownedcarl



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:31:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2631944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s fraying at the edges, day by day, and even the darkness of night and the comfort it offers doesn’t help Alex cope any more than the drugs do. Temporary, temporary – he knows what an ugly word it is and just how true it’s always been. A fix only lasts for so long and Alex isn’t sure he wants to know how much further he can push himself to go before something’s bound to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your darkness has found a kindred spirit

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello i love prison break and porn so there we go
> 
> this shitstorm tries to follow canon to some degree but i've obviously taken some liberties and incorporated my own headcanons into this work so. y'all be aware
> 
> alex/pam is brief yet crucial; alex/other is pure angst, & alex/michael is vague but of utmost importance
> 
> tagged mildly dubious consent bc that's what i consider it to be; if anyone feels like a more explicit warning is warranted, hmu and i'll do what i can
> 
> additionally, alex/pam is mentioned and referenced throughout this whole mess but they are, as in canon, divorced
> 
> title by [Emily Palermo, from "On Loving A Monster"](http://starredsoul.tumblr.com/post/94118270792/his-hands-shake-something-furious-and-you-dont) & end quote by [Louise Glück, from "Departure"](https://reylemuel.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/71/)

Alexander Mahone doesn’t gain his position within the bureau through anything other than hard work and dedication. His reputation precedes him and sometimes discredits him; more seasoned agents don’t approve of his quick rise through the ranks and they make it abundantly clear that they consider him beneath them, even when he’s the one commanding a room. Things like that don’t bother Alex. He does his job and he does it well, because anything else wouldn’t be enough. Trying doesn’t count when it’s results everyone wants.

He hunts a lot of men down and put them back in prison. His face ends up on the TV more than he’d like, but as long as he’s the public face of the bureau during retrievals, he knows he’s more of an asset: he’s human, someone people can reach out to with hesitant and sensitive information. Eventually, their confidence in him grows, and it might touch Alex that the public consider him trustworthy.

Every man he sets his sights on goes back to prison. They slip up, get desperate and leave a mess for him to follow without faltering. It’s hard work that only gets harder, but Alex isn’t asking for approval or acknowledgment; his reward is coming home and hugging Cameron, kissing Pam, and knowing that the world is just a little bit safer after his efforts.

Some men are worse than others. Some aren’t just thieves and conmen that were trying to make money the only way they knew how, and it’s those men that Alex sets his sights on. On those cases, there’s no room for error, no telling what they could do. The only thing that’s certain is that they will make a mistake, at least one, to lead Alex right to them. He knows that the world isn’t just black and white, but even if the men he sends back where they belong don’t deserve their sentence, breaking out of prison is still a crime that they need to answer for.

Pam doesn’t like the long days that he works or the fact that he’s rarely home for birthdays, but she calls him when he’s at work and teases him; you’re on TV, she sometimes says, laughter in her voice, warm and tender, something to break Alex out of his thoughts when he needs it. Pam tells him that Cameron is so proud, how he talks to his friends and his teachers about how his daddy puts bad men away, and Alex knows that the smile that overtakes him at times like that is nothing short of awestruck. It never gets familiar, having something so precious to come home to. I miss you, he’ll tell Pam when she pauses, knowing that her smile has gone just a little bit sad; I miss you and Cameron. Tell him I love him.

She always does, even when Alex’s voice is tired and the clock has ticked past midnight. He needs to know that you’re here for him, she’ll say, even when you’re not here.  


He hunts Oscar Shales for so long that it becomes his life. Oscar Shales is not the kind of man you incarcerate and rehabilitate; he’s the kind of man you destroy. Alex learns things like that through trial and error, watching too many bad men slip away from the death sentence and end up back on the streets, terrorizing society. It never ends on the terms Alex would like.

–

Few things scare Alex, but everything that scares him always comes back around to loss. If he lost his job, his family – he doesn’t like to entertain those thoughts, despite knowing how likely those outcomes might be. He does what he needs to do and sometimes he does things he doesn’t need to do, but in the end, it puts blood on his hands and gives him sleepless nights. Addiction is an easy thing to fall into, somehow, when the stress rises and his conscience decides to make itself known. You killed a man, it tells him, and you felt no remorse.

He feels it now. He wouldn’t take it back or change it, because some men are so sick that they only belong six feet under, but Alex can’t stop feeling like he’s done something wrong even when the general public murmurs hesitantly – hopefully – about someone finally ending Oscar Shales’ rampage. If Alex were a lesser man, he’d boast about it and take the credit, but if he were a better man he’d confess and accept the punishment. He’s not that kind of man.

He broke protocol. He did what he wasn’t supposed to do and he knows that he should accept the consequences, serve the time, but he sleeps next to his wife and with his son safe down the hall, and few things in life have ever felt more right than that.

For a while, sleep comes easily. For a long time after that, it doesn’t come at all.

–

The drugs are necessary. They keep Alex focused, and if there’s one thing he needs it’s focus, but the job pushes him to greater lengths than ever before and one pill a day becomes two, three, four and then five – it doesn’t ruin him like it does others; doesn’t rot his teeth or hollow his stomach, but it puts bruises under his eyes and nervous tics in his hands and lips. He’s a good liar, but the strain weighs him down every time someone brings up Shales and Alex readily agrees that the hunt shouldn’t stop just because the trail went cold.

There’s a body buried in his yard, and Alex is starting to doubt that he can take the pressure.

–

There aren’t a lot of people in the world that Alex would readily say he’d submit to. Professionally, maybe; there are things he has to do in order to keep his job and because being the best just doesn’t cut it sometimes. He has to be efficient but he can’t afford to be arrogant. He has to be tough, but he can’t come across as heartless. He has to be a lot of things that don’t come naturally to him, but it’s worth it in the end. Alex has a job and a family and a reputation, and there are few things he needs more than that in order to feel content.

Even contentment fades, however, and Alex frequently finds himself sleepless even when his body is running on empty.

–

Alex spends his time studying people; figuring them out, because there’s no better way to take a man down than knowing what it is he wants. Other agents don’t interest him beyond professional curiosity; they gossip and they gloat and neither of those two things will get them out of their offices to do any real good in the world, so they don’t interest Alex. They come and go on a regular basis and he rarely gets to work with the same people more than once. Except for his immediate circle of trusted and capable co-workers, he doesn't spend much time around other agents.

He knows how to read people. It puts a distance between him and them, because they can’t tell what makes him tick and what makes his blood boil; he has advantages that they don’t, and nobody has ever been able to know Alex in the way that he knows them. Pam tries, has been trying for years, but even she has no idea about the things Alex has done and the things he sees in the dark or in his own reflection.

His hands shake, sometimes.

The field office is where he spends most of his time, but he takes little notice of the happenings around him unless they pertain to the case. If there’s a disconnect separating him from reality, Alex doesn’t mind it, but a man walks into the office one day and Alex finds himself looking at him for a minute longer than usual. He pays more attention to this man than he normally does his coworkers.

He notices things: the easy gait, disarming smile and the clever, sharp eyes; the broad shoulders and rough hands, a steady voice that hints at earned confidence. This man is not the usual wet-behind-the-ears agent, and Alex pauses to consider him, lost in thought. It isn’t until the man strikes up a conversation with Lang and she says “Welcome on board, agent Parker,” that Alex puts the pieces together. This is the man who put away a cartel a few years back, made the news; his cases have gotten bigger and his operations more drawn-out since then, Alex recalls. Parker is almost on the same level as him, but not quite.

It gives him a great amount of satisfaction in realizing that agent Parker knows that, too, because he slants Alex a dark look and smiles. It’s a mirthless thing, but there’s intrigue there. Alex is cautious, wondering if he returns the expression.

Lang is speaking to Parker, and their voices wash over Alex from far away. It happens more often now, the episodes of detachment, but he comes back to his body only to realize that the two other agents have asked him a question.

All men want something. “What do you want, agent Mahone?”

Parker’s voice isn’t smooth, but it is deep, and Alex thinks _I want you under my skin_.

–

It isn’t easy for Alex to get along with people. They seem to return the sentiment; it’s a given by now that Alex drives away anyone that can’t keep up and do what he tells them to without question, but it’s a wedge he deliberately puts there. It keeps people where he wants them; far away.

Parker is insistent, more so than Lang. Lang invites Alex out for coffee and asks him about his son. Parker stands too close and tells Alex about his cases; he pushes and prods where he isn’t wanted, and Alex’s temper is going to get the best of him one of these days.

He’s fraying at the edges, day by day, and even the darkness of night and the comfort it offers doesn’t help Alex cope any more than the drugs do. Temporary, temporary – he knows what an ugly word it is and just how true it’s always been. A fix only lasts for so long and Alex isn’t sure he wants to know how much further he can push himself to go before something’s bound to give.

It won’t be his family. It can’t be, because there is nothing in the world that Alex needs more. He would do anything for them and to keep them safe, but he can’t always keep his promises. Pam knows that, and she knows that Alex makes fewer promises as the years go by.

Somewhere down the road, he’s going to cave.

–

It’s easy to make his slip-ups look like something casual and ordinary. When Alex’s hands shake, he says he hasn’t been getting enough sleep and Lang tells him to cut down on the caffeine. When the headaches set in, he makes up an easy, consistent lie about chronic migraines being common in his family, and nobody questions him about that. The life he and his fellow agents lead is far from easy, so they won’t push unless they see Alex fall apart. He’s been fine for years, never falls, but it’s getting startlingly close to the point where Alex can feel his composure escaping him.

Getting his hands on more drugs would be easy. Upping his dose would be a matter of practicality, but there have to be other options out there that won’t leave Pam looking at him out of the corner of her eye with concern and suspicion. She already knows something is wrong, but she’s never wanted to know about his cases, so she never asks. She never seems to be expecting an explanation, either, and Alex knows that he’s failed her without her needing to say a single thing.

The pressure isn’t quite eating Alex alive, but it’s a close thing. He’s another step closer to the edge, and he’s not willing to face the abyss.

–

In the end, it feels inevitable that it should be Parker that would become both his source of release and his tormentor. The man is hard to like and Alex doesn’t, but liking someone has nothing to do with needing something from them and Alex has come to terms with the things that he wants.

It’s a betrayal; indisputable and absolute. He holds no illusions about that. It’ll shatter his marriage that final bit if Pam finds out, but lying to her is just as bad as betraying her and Alex doesn’t have the guts to tell her a thing, even when she deserves to know. He’s not a brave man, and true cowardice is flying to Nebraska for a job and knocking on Parker’s door when the other agents have turned in for the night in their own rooms.

Parker looks like he’s been expecting this. It makes Alex feel sick to his stomach, but this once his hands aren’t shaking like they usually are.

Alex never answered his question, that first day. All men want something; they want a lot more than one thing, but this will have to do. Any more than this and Alex might as well give in all the way, and he can’t. It’s the first time, and the worst time.

He’s never liked pain. When it comes to intimacy, Alex knows his own boundaries. He got married young; he’s been with the same woman for well over a decade, and that love hasn’t gone anywhere, even if it’s soured and diluted itself over the years because he forgot what it meant to be a husband.

He’s never liked pain, but he accepts it. Parker has a way with his body that reminds Alex of the men they hunt.

It isn’t so different from what Alex already knows, but being with a man is something that makes his heart pound inside his chest and sweat stick to his temples. He’s never considered himself desirable beyond a certain degree, but Parker makes him feel something twisting and hot low down in his stomach that Alex must have forgotten. It feels familiar; welcome home. This is who you are. This is where you belong.

It only takes a minute for Parker to make one thing clear: in here, hidden away and shameful, Alex doesn’t get to decide.

He doesn’t think of Pam. Maybe he should; it hardly matters what goes on in his head while Parker strips him out of his shirt, but it feels like one final betrayal. His wife doesn’t belong here in the dark where Alex is beginning to feel alive.

A hot flash, a hiss; Parker’s teeth suck on a spot that’s far too visible, high up on Alex’s jaw, teeth scraping harshly against skin like he isn’t just trying to leave a mark. It feels like he’s trying to take a bite out of Alex and keep it for himself, but Alex can’t imagine why he’d want to. There is nothing in him that isn’t diseased.

People say that things like this make them feel like the world is far away. For Alex, it’s the other way around. He’s far too aware of the fact that there’s only a door between this hopeless situation and the reality that’s going to be waiting for him in the morning, no matter where he goes. He knows that there’s no going back from this and no pretending, but when he’s already gotten this far, there’s no point in stopping. The guilt will still eat him up either way.

For some reason, he expected Parker to talk more, but he makes his intentions clear without words. With Alex’s shirt off and fingers pressing against his right hip, pushing, he knows what he’s supposed to do and where he’s supposed to go. It should terrify him, and maybe it does – he doesn’t recognize the rapid beating of his own heart until it feels fit to bruise him on the inside and hurt him like he deserves. When the kiss comes, it’s not all bite; instead, it’s heat and pressure, like staking a claim, but Parker knows better than that. His hands speak a different language, though, calloused against Alex’s skin.

His own hands don’t shake.

He’ll have scrapes to answer for in the morning, stubble burn; for some reason, the thought hits him sharply and leaves Alex short for breath, an eerie stillness settling between his body and Parker’s when a shudder wracks his chest during the next biting kiss. It feels like Parker is looking at him and piecing something together, but he can’t. He can’t possibly know what turmoil feels like; not like this.

Parker’s voice is far from a beacon in the darkness, but it beckons to Alex like the pills do; calling him closer, crowding him against a wall. He has no fight in him. There’s no use for posturing, not in here. Nobody can see him in the dark, anyway.

It’s the intimacy that Alex protests. He can handle the kisses with bite to them, but not the ones Parker presses against his jaw. When Alex turns his head and pushes a hand against Parker’s chest, it earns him a look that’s somehow both patient and amused, like Parker is telling him he knows Alex better than he knows himself.

“Not that,” Alex tells him, his own voice muted and too soft, too distant. “Bite me, fuck me, wound me – don’t kiss me. Not like that.”

Not like Pam kisses him, standing behind Alex at the sink, her arms around his waist and her fond, tired smile tucked against Alex’s jaw.

The understanding in Parker’s eyes infuriates him. It feels like Alex is missing something, maybe the key to this entire situation, because it becomes clear that Parker is humoring him, playing him, and Alex is nobody’s plaything. “Come on,” he mutters, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall. His chest is heaving. “Come on.”

He doesn’t have to ask again; not for Parker to start or for him to stop.

Parker doesn’t pay attention to Alex’s scars the way Pam does, sometimes, tracing them and trying to bring a smile to Alex’s face when her fingers find a tender spot. Parker only moves over Alex’s body like he doesn’t think he needs to ask permission, and once his fingers close around Alex’s throat for a heartbeat, Alex doesn’t move. No pressure is added. The hold is curious, experimental, but Alex’s breath comes out of him on a thin sigh anyway, like he can’t get enough air.

He’s still against the wall when Parker leans a little closer, the scant inch that he has on Alex feeling like a mile when Alex looks up and only sees his eyes in the somber darkness of the room. It makes this entire thing feel more unreal, secretive; certainly more forbidden and cruel, too, but that’s nothing Alex didn’t already know.

The hand that’s resting against his throat slowly eases away. It feels somewhat like a loss.

Parker moves like a man that’s familiar with this territory. Men, shame or pleasure – whatever it is that he’s so intimately familiar with, Alex doesn’t think to ask. He doesn’t say a word.

His eyes stay closed for a long time. It isn’t until Parker tugs him forward by the waist and pushes his pants down his hips that Alex realizes there’s a sense of dizziness coursing through him, his stomach tight with a shudder that leaves him feeling cold. Parker is capable and certain in his movements when he pulls Alex towards his body while Alex steps out of the denim around his ankles. He’s never been a self-conscious man, and he doesn’t feel exposed, exactly – but something in his chest goes tight when he realizes that he’s standing naked in front of a man who hasn’t taken any of his own clothes off yet.

Parker could be attempting a power play, maybe, or something else. Alex doesn’t mind. He doesn’t ask.

Detachment never comes. Instead, it’s hyper-awareness that he experiences in that moment where he’s pushed towards the bed and then down on it, face-first, eyes closed out of something that feels a lot like desperation. Alex already knows that one time isn’t going to be enough. Before they’ve even started, he knows that he won’t be able to walk away from this without wanting to come back again.

At the first bite, his jaw tenses. Teeth scrape down between the blades of his shoulders, finding the place where he got shot as a rookie, and the scar tissue burns for a moment before the pain turns into an ache. “Come on, damn it,” Alex breathes, demanding _something_ with the shove of his hips against the bed, pulse pounding in three different places all at once. “Don’t play with me.”

Parker doesn’t. There’s a quiet rustle, a clink of metal, and then Alex is curling in on himself when a hand settles on the small of his back, testing the give and flex of muscle there like he’s curious about the limitations to Alex’s body. He pushes back into the touch, instinctual, greedy.

Alex can’t determine where in his body the tremble originates, but it travels through him until it’s the only thing he can focus on. He’s drifting in and out, registering sensation, noting the white-hot pleasure of a mouth biting down hard in places nobody will be able to see their remnants, smudged black and blue across Alex’s skin. He’ll feel it; he’ll feel it for days.

He hasn’t flinched since the first time his father laid a hand on him that threatened to beat him into the ground, but when a weight settles on top of him, atop the backs of his thighs, Alex has to take a deep breath to cope with the voice in the back of his head that’s telling him to run. He doesn’t want to, and that voice isn’t his – it’s small and quiet and tempting, and Alex shuts it out when Parker’s hands hold him down; he doesn’t know Alex as well as he thinks. He isn’t going anywhere.

The moan that rises in the back of his throat is so unlike him that it takes Alex a moment to register that the sound came from his own body. He doesn’t sound like that; doesn’t plead that wordlessly, never has, but his skin is warm, for once, and there’s no ghosts dancing on the insides of his eyelids, so Alex takes a breath and accepts it. If this is who he is, just for now, he’ll live with it.

There are no more kisses. A hand settles on the back of his neck, twining into his hair before pulling sharply, forcing Alex’s head and chest up until his throat is burning from the bent-back angle, gasping once, trying to regulate his breathing. He doesn’t hyperventilate, but a groan is torn from his chest when Parker only grips his hair tighter. The hand he has out of Alex’s reach settles back on his thigh, and this time, Alex can feel the difference in texture; he can feel the slick slide of two fingers pressed together, drawing aimless patterns on pale skin.

Alex only shivers when they sink inside of him. It doesn’t hurt. They push, flex - in, in, and down. They curl carefully, thoughtfully, like Parker is testing a theory.

Whatever reaction he’s looking for in Alex’s shuddering flesh, he seems satisfied with just the gasp that’s been knocked loose from between Alex’s gritted teeth. He can feel the half-smile that curls Parker’s lips, the curve of them settled almost unbearably gently on Alex’s shoulder, but he swallows down his discomfort and breathes, settles. This is what he wanted.

The voice that’s been trying to coax him out of this room and back down the hall to his own rented bed quiets down when Parker’s breath warms the back of Alex’s neck, steady and almost soothing, somehow still remaining unnerving. He has no experience with things like this or men like Parker, not in this way, and Alex slowly finds himself wanting to know more; another part of him wants to forget this ever happened, even before anything really has.

Parker doesn’t relent. He isn’t a merciful man, and there’s no mistaking the jerk of Alex’s hips when Parker’s fingers curl inside of him, a flash of pleasure that’s edging towards pain marking his features, turning Alex’s expression agonized. Parker can’t see, and somehow, that’s a relief. Even when Alex is here in the unknown, he’s not the only one that’s being kept in the dark. He’s not the only one looking for something here, and maybe that should be a relief, because it means he’s not the only one struggling to gain control.

He grasps at it, willing it closer, but Parker’s teeth scrape against his neck and somehow, impossibly, Alex feels himself relaxing. The entire room is shrouded in shadows and there’s almost no sound, no sign of life in the stillness, except for the moment where Alex gasps and finds himself trying to move back against the sensation; asking for more, regardless of what. The guilt is silent, now.

There’s no warning, but Alex didn’t think there would be. There’s no place for it here. 

Parker doesn’t ask him if he’s ready like Alex used to ask Pam before he learned to read her body and she learned to trust him never to overstep his boundaries, but Parker doesn’t ease Alex into anything. He only pushes in, hard, and for a moment, Alex thinks he can’t do this. He thinks that this is the one thing in the world he is incapable of handling, but once the pressure-pain fades and his breathing eases, something else comes to life.

His hands don’t know what to do, so they grasp at the coarse sheets, gripping them so tightly that Alex thinks his knuckles must be going white from the strain. His whole body is unmoving, locked inside itself from the sensation, his heart still beating too hard inside his chest. If it breaks his ribs, he wouldn’t be surprised.

It’s strange, the way it goes – strange because Parker isn’t cruel, not exactly. He doesn’t act like this is some act of glee and revenge where he finally manages to put Alex beneath him, because he doesn’t move like he wants to destroy or humiliate him. He moves like all he wants is the pleasure, the feeling, and Alex can work with that, despite his spinning head and his airless lungs.

The movements start out slow. It might not be for his benefit, might be Parker trying to savor the moment, but either way, it makes it easier for Alex to breathe without feeling like he’s going to crawl out of his skin because it can’t keep him and his desire inside anymore. It hurts, isn’t the worst he ever had, but it’s a strange kind of hurt that pierces him somewhere deep until his breath is coming in gasps.

It isn’t loud. Parker doesn’t talk; only breathes evenly with every push inside Alex’s body, moving with bruising force once the rhythm evens out. Like that, Alex feels disconnected from his body in a way that’s far too familiar. He feels like he’s floating in and out despite the fact that he’s anchored here, in this room, committing himself to something that might ruin him one day. Even then, with that knowledge, he doesn’t ask for it to stop; he doesn’t ask for Parker to let him up and out of this room. There’s nothing for him there, either way.

It’s slow, slow, slow – it anguishes him and takes his breath away in equal measure, and Alex is being pushed down against the bed, pinned to it by a hand in the middle of his back. Nothing has ever felt quite so much like possession, and he can feel sweat trailing down his hairline, his spine, against the insides of his thighs and the curve of his shoulder. Slick, hot; everything he thought he’d never want like this, but right here, it’s the only thing that Alex can think of ever wanting.

When it ends, it ends abruptly. The hand that isn’t pinning him moves beneath Alex’s trembling body and touches him, slow and hard, and the world explodes in a burst of light. If he were standing, his legs would give out and send him to his knees on the floor, exhausted and complacent, but like this, he only shudders against the bed and feels how the rhythm changes from easy to bruising. Brutal, maybe – fitting, either way.

Parker makes no sound. He’s more composed here than Alex has ever seen him in the office, but he shoves against Alex’s body and sighs, long and serene, his hands stilling where they’re holding Alex captive. When he’s let go, he doesn’t think he can move.

“Not a word,” is what Alex says into the dark, mouth moving against the bedspread. He can feel the grain of it, the rough texture, and it’s more vivid than anything else he’s felt tonight. “If I hear _one_ word, one rumor–“

Parker smiles like he’s been anticipating this speech, this demand, and only leans back to adjust his shirt. He never took his clothes off; while Alex will bear the evidence, Parker looks like nothing has happened to him. “I know,” he says, like he does. He never could, and Alex picks himself up slowly, disheveled when he gets himself back into his clothes. 

He feels too disjointed to yell, too shaken to do much of anything, but he stands and only feels an ache from the inside and out.

There was no protection, he realizes, a sickening feeling blooming in his stomach like it wants to take him over. “Don’t ever come to me about this,” Alex says, fingers unsteady on the buttons of his shirt. He has marks he needs to cover up, bruises and welts, but that comes later. “If I ever want anything else to do with you, I’ll let you know.”

“I’m sure you will,” Parker responds, pouring himself a drink out of the minibar. Alex lets himself out, walks down the hall, unlocks his own door and then leans against it once it’s closed behind him. With a deep, shaking breath, he takes a shower.

It doesn’t mean a thing that the worst of it will be washed off, but it eases his mind. Lately, few things do.

–

Eight inmates break out of Fox River, and Alex is assigned the case without much delay. The files are numerous and varying; grand larceny, murder, rape – and a robbery gone wrong, or so it says, but Alex looks into the history of Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows and spends a night poring over their respective pasts.

Brothers, he thinks, something clicking into place in the layout of this entire thing. Scofield’s imprisonment coinciding with Burrows’ execution date – there’s something there, a plan, and Alex will figure it out. No matter how long it takes, he’ll figure this out like he always does, but in the meantime, he needs to keep his hands from shaking.

–

He doesn’t stay in touch with Parker when he gets reassigned, but when they happen to be in the same city, maybe working the same case – 

Alex wishes he knew how to stay away, but he can only blame himself for how he ends up repeating things he thought he’d almost forgotten. Parker never asks him for a thing or reaches out to invite him home, wherever home is, but Alex finds him when his mind isn’t working like it should and when his skin is stretched too thinly across his bones. It always amounts to the same thing; sex with a hint of pain, leaving Alex bruised and tender for days to follow. Pam has her suspicions, but he knows it would break her heart to ask him and hear him say yes – yes, because he doesn’t lie to her. If he doesn’t tell her things, she won’t ask, and that’s what’s holding them together by a thread.

Parker introduces new things to Alex even when he doesn’t ask for them. His marks go deeper and stay longer, but everything is, in essence, the same. Alex shows up where Parker is staying and Parker never takes his clothes off. The first time the sex doesn’t happen right away, when Parker tells Alex to get on his knees – Alex, inexplicably, does.

He stays like that for a long time, breathing hard when Parker only strokes a hand across his shoulders and down his back in a caress, like he knows that it’s the gentleness that breaks Alex more than violence ever could. “Close your eyes,” Parker says. He never tells Alex to voice any need to stop, so he doesn’t.

He should have seen it coming. It’s always been about more than sex and they both know it, but Alex has lived with denial and pretense for so long that it’s easy to revert back to it when Parker slides fingers into his hair and murmurs to him with dark eyes. “Too easy,” he tells Alex, “To figure out what you want.”

Alex’s mouth is dry when he asks “What do I want–?” and receives a tug to his hair for the words. Parker doesn’t smile and his eyes stay dark, but a certain kind of pleasure lingers in his features when he puts pressure against Alex’s neck and he inevitably bows his head, helpless.

“You don’t know,” he hears Parker say, Alex’s eyes closing as Parker stands behind him. He doesn’t feel vulnerable, but it’s not easy to feel strong when you’re stripped bare and put on your knees because someone told you to and you knew you’d do it. “You have no idea, do you? You rely on me to know, and I do.”

Another sharp breath, another scratch of nails, and Alex tightens his jaw against the words that want to snap at Parker to stop. It never leads to anything he wants. “Do you?”

Parker acts like Alex’s words have pleased him, somehow. “You want to give it all up,” he murmurs, the furthest thing from true, but if it was a lie, Alex would be able to tell. For all his malevolence, Parker has never lied to him. Alex relies on that. “But what you want isn’t important. It’s what you don’t want that I’m curious about.”

The fingers leave Alex’s hair, sliding down his side and then falling away into empty space. “You don’t want to feel the way you do outside of this room, away from me.”

Alex’s breath catches imperceptibly.

Parker shouldn’t know things like that. Alex has never told him or given any indication, but Parker knows, somehow, that when Alex is struggling, he wants to leave his body. This is just a way to achieve that, and Parker strokes a hand down his spine with his nails tracing a path along Alex’s skin, knowledgeable. “I won’t ask you to trust me,” Parker says, half a laugh in his voice. “You don’t and you never will. I won’t listen when you say stop, but you knew that already, and you never say stop, do you? I like that about you.”

He’s a sick man. They’re both sick men, Alex thinks, for doing this. “Quiet, now,” Parker instructs him. It isn’t the first time he’s made demands or talked to Alex like it’s an order, but Alex swallows down something quiet and fearful, his hands clenching into fists where they rest on his thighs. He’s hard.

That night, Parker fucks him like that, with Alex up on his knees and straining with trembling limbs, and when he walks away, he’s more bruised than he ever has been before. He sleeps deeply.

–

They elude him. They play tricks, even the ones that were only involved in the plan to a minimum, and Alex can feel his patience running out. Scofield escaping would be expected, and even Burrows by association, but when even Bagwell and Sucre find ways to lead the authorities off their trail, Alex’s temper gets the best of him. He’s snappy with Pam, impatient with Cameron, and at work, his performance is suffering the longer the hunt goes on.

Parker is in another city and Alex doesn’t call him. Instead, he takes to the pills like he always does, trusting them to calm his nerves and clear his mind, and when it does, he knows what the next step is.

Abruzzi, Apolskis, and Patoshik – a means to an end, Alex thinks, and he doesn’t hesitate once.

–

On Cameron’s birthday, Alex doesn’t have the day off. No matter how important his family is, returning the Fox River Eight to prison is more important than that. Pam takes Cameron out for a picnic during the day and then to a birthday gathering at Chuck E Cheese’s, but when Alex gets home they go stargazing at night, pointing out constellations and enunciating the names so that Cameron can say them properly. He likes stargazing more than either Pam or Alex do, and Alex has already bought him a telescope set that can see more than their eyes can alone.

“You’re a good man,” Pam tells him, her head tucked against Alex’s shoulder and Cameron asleep between them, tired from a day of celebrating. “You’re a good father.”

She doesn’t say you’re a good husband, but Alex doesn’t expect her to. “I’m sorry I’m always away,” he tells her, meaning it with all his heart. “I’m sorry, Pam.”

He wishes she didn’t forgive him so easily or believe him like she does, but she takes Alex’s hand and kisses the center of his palm, lips curved in a smile as she does. “You always come through,” she says with conviction. “No matter what, you always come home. You keep your promises.”

There’s an uncertainty in her voice that doesn’t belong, and Alex put it there. He can’t kiss that away, but he can kiss away her frown, so he does; it makes Pam smile and bring a hand to the back of his neck in order to hold him close, like she’s looking for the parts of Alex she knows belong to her. She must find them, because she whispers “You’re everything I want,” and says it again before they go to sleep.

Alex lies awake, looking through the window. It’s dark outside. The stars have all gone away.

–

The planted drugs send Alex to prison in a country where he wouldn’t condemn the worst of the worst. He’s stripped of his badge; stripped of more than that, but the first day in Sona is, at least, bearable. The inmates don’t harass him like they do Michael. They seem to know that he won’t hesitate to put them down, and Alex only makes it that much clearer when Michael has his back turned and Alex kills the man that lunges at him with a knife. Lechero doesn’t appreciate the show, but he doesn’t send men after Alex either, so Alex walks away to where he can be alone and tries to convince himself his insides aren’t burning from the early withdrawal.

There are no more pills and no more nights filled with bruises and heat, but Alex has no other outlet than that. He needs something to put him back together because he’s forgotten how to do that himself; when he realizes T-Bag is climbing the ranks and making himself known, it only puts Alex all the more on the alert – he can’t afford to be feeling this weak and hopeless.

He has no allies in here as a former FBI agent, but he doesn’t have outright enemies, either. Even from day one, he knows Michael is going to try to break out and that he’ll have people on the outside to assist him, so Alex’s plan is straightforward: he’ll make himself useful, indispensable, and get himself out of this. If Michael won’t testify, he owes Alex this. He owes him at least that.

The court date comes, and Alex almost doesn’t register the elation that’s tugging halfheartedly at his insides. It all falls apart, of course, because Alex doesn’t remember how to keep his hands steady and his voice even when there’s something tugging at his insides and burning beneath his skin. Lang can’t help him like this, and she’s just another person that he’s let down.

–

Some prisoners say _it isn’t forever_ with expressions that give away just how little they believe that. Alex has heard the cautionary tales from both the inside and the outside. He knows that the men that come in never come out – at least not alive.

He hasn’t spoken to Pam in months.

–

Michael doesn’t trust him. It doesn’t come as a surprise, but Alex is only living on desperation by now, so he doesn’t let that slow him down. He wants out as badly as Michael does, but he _needs_ to get out more than Michael; he needs to find a life where he can be the man Pam always thought he was, and he needs to be able to look his son in the eyes and know that he hasn’t abandoned him.

Too many people are in on the plan, and T-Bag’s offer of a dirty little fix is more appealing than Alex can handle. Michael has told him he needs Alex clear-headed and focused for this escape to work, but Alex can’t be clear-headed and focused without a little assistance.

Whistler is on his side. He backs Alex up; they’re similar men, the two of them. They can gain a lot more from an alliance with each other than they can through one with Michael. 

Nothing explicit is said, but it’s understood. Once we’re out, we stick together. We find a way to get out and get home. We find a way to be saved.

–

When things go south, they go straight to hell. Alex has been wary of T-Bag and Bellick since day one, so when they get caught in the crossfire alongside Lechero, Alex understands that it could just as easily be him on that field, staring down the barrel of an automatic. Michael might want to leave him behind, but he doesn’t. It doesn’t count for anything, because Alex still killed his and Lincoln’s father and doesn’t expect to make it home alive, but once they’ve managed to find their way to the safehouse, he makes his move.

Lincoln would have killed him. Alex understands that.

–

Whistler is right beside him as they make their way back to US soil. When it comes to the Company, Alex doesn’t feel one way or another, so he does what he’s asked to do and sits with his phone in his hand for hours at a time during the nighttime, willing himself to just make the call. Pam is a forgiving person, but Alex knows that he doesn’t deserve her forgiveness just because she’s willing to grant it. He doesn’t call, but he keeps himself updated; he knows when Cameron wins third place at the science fair and smiles to himself when he finds out Pam’s got a new haircut. It looks nice on her.

–

He lays low. It’s a necessity, but Alex itches to return to the life he used to have. He has no hope of being reinstated as an agent again, and even though he’s sure Lang would vouch for him, her word, support and faith alone won’t be enough against all of Alex’s mistakes and sins. The drug charge by itself would be enough to sully his reputation; the fact that there are heavier charges filed against him and public knowledge of what he did to Oscar Shales just puts the nail in the coffin.

He’s not useful to the bureau anymore, so Alex finds alternate venues. Whistler sets him up and stays in touch, but when Michael’s plans become known to him, Alex feels compelled to tell him. Sara Tancredi never died, and Michael’s grudge might abate slightly if he finds out.

When Alex looks at himself in the mirror, he sees a man that’s going home.

–

The world isn’t meant to end like it does. The world isn’t allowed to end with an innocent boy’s corpse being carried out to an ambulance, but it does.

–

They bring him in on the Scylla case. Alex wonders how useful they expect him to be in this state but doesn’t say a word about Cameron. Even thinking about it makes him feel a defeat so deep he thinks he’ll fall apart and never become whole again. Lincoln still wants to kill him, Michael still doesn’t trust him – but it’s the only option Alex has got, even when it isn’t much of an option at all.

To them, it’s as simple as taking down the Company through Scylla. To Alex, it goes beyond that; he’s taking down more than the corrupt. He’s taking down the man that put bullets in his boy and tears in Pam’s eyes. He’s taking down the person that destroyed the very foundation of his world. It weighs on him even when he closes his eyes, and the darkness hasn’t been his friend in a long time.

–

Lang has never turned him away or let him down. She hesitates when Alex calls, doesn’t want to get involved, but when he says “They killed my son,” he can hear the soft intake of her breath, shocked and disbelieving. “They killed my boy,” Alex says, hearing his own voice crack.

He had thought that maybe things could be better, once he came back home. Instead, he’s the one that brought down destruction on his own family.

–

He remembers the good times. If there’s anything he wishes he hadn’t taken for granted, it’s all the times that Pam managed a smile instead of a frown and the times Alex made it home before dark in order to tuck Cameron into bed. He remembers laughing into the crook of Pam’s neck in the dark as she murmured against his collarbone, and he remembers Pam telling him that he had beautiful hands without knowing how much blood he had on them.

Alex isn’t worth her time, never was – he’s done nothing but hurt her even when he was doing it to keep her safe. He doesn’t manage to keep his promises and his son – his _son_ –

He can’t ever make it right, and he can’t ever look Pam in the eyes again without knowing what he’s done.

–

There’s always been tension between Michael and him, undoubtedly, but it manifests itself in different ways as they learn about each other in a new light. Initially, things were simple, as close to black and white as they’d ever get; Alex playing the agent out for the bad guy and Michael playing the bad guy – except that was never true, even when Michael didn’t know what Alex had done and what he was capable of. There wasn’t much of a gray area for them to inhabit, but Michael has always been the better man.

Being an agent doesn’t make Alex a good person, and it doesn’t make him any less of a killer. Michael has never pulled the trigger, never directly, but Alex doesn’t doubt that if he ever would, the gun would be trained on him.

They watch each other. It doesn’t take Alex long to notice, and Michael catches on soon enough when they’re forced to work together, both in Sona and then after, under agent Self’s instruction. Michael watches for cracks, Alex watches for betrayal. Neither of those things would be unexpected if they were found.

–

Scars aren’t as uncomfortable a subject as Alex would think. It isn’t for him, anyway; he’s upfront about it if someone cares to ask, but it comes as a safety net of sorts, considering that the only scars people can see are the ones he bares when his sleeves are rolled up. It makes for interesting and alternatively amusing conversation, sometimes, like Sucre shaking his head at him when he admits the scar on his calf is just from a mishap in the garden.

The ones that he doesn’t like people to see are few, but Alex has never wanted to lay himself bare. He remembers Sullins looking at him in the courthouse back in Panama a lifetime ago, seeing Alex scratching at his wrist until he drew blood. That left quite a few scars, however thin and shallow. The wounds closed and the skin is a little shinier there now, dead to the touch, and Alex knows far too well what that might look like.

He thinks he lucks out with the team on that one, after all. He isn’t some teenager with emotional baggage anymore – not the same baggage, at least, and he didn’t intend to harm himself, but the need and compulsion tugged at him and he had to do something to anchor himself to that room and give Sullins and the court what they wanted, so – 

“Self-inflicted,” he tells Bellick when he asks, shrugging a shoulder to signal that it isn’t important. “Withdrawal.”

That’s the end of it; nobody wants to talk about those scars. Alex doesn’t either, but sometimes the words come anyway.

–

It’s a shame, Alex thinks, that Michael decided to have the tattoos removed. Alex would have done the same thing in his place, but it feels like a vital part of Michael has suddenly been burned away when his skin doesn’t carry a hundred secrets beneath it.

–

It isn’t any easier to pretend like he isn’t still looking for a high; any kind of high, even when his options are limited and the outcome is likely to be disastrous. Alex has learned his lesson but it doesn’t do a thing about the itch beneath his skin, not at all, not even when he closes his eyes and breathes deeply, images playing across his eyelids.

That one time, on his knees –

“Hey,” Michael says, eyeing Alex like he’s wary of coming any closer. He opened his eyes the second he heard Michael approaching. “What’s going on?”

There’s really no use in lying. “Restless,” is what Alex tells Michael, head tilted back against the wall, a sharp exhale leaving him. “Craving.”

He might as well tell Michael before it gets too bad; there’s no use in lying. Alex won’t gain anything through it and he knows how ugly things can get when he does, so he doesn’t. He expects the caged look that Michael shoots him when he decides that Alex is telling the truth, and Alex only blinks at him, slow and measured.

He’s been craving for a while. “You won’t start using again,” Michael says, and it isn’t a question at all. “You wouldn’t.”

I would, Alex thinks. I’d do a lot of things you wouldn’t expect from me. I’d get on my knees. “I wouldn’t,” he agrees, hands folding together in his lap, looking for something to occupy them. “You know that better than anyone else.”

They don’t talk about the wordless understanding that weighs heavily between them, never have, probably never will; they don’t skirt around it, but Michael knows Alex has his back and Alex knows that Michael won’t let him slip. For what it’s worth, it makes them rely on each other just a little bit more. “I won’t always be here.”

Michael’s voice is quiet and steady. “You won’t have to be,” Alex assures him, closing his eyes on a chuckle. “What, don’t you trust me?”

Alex’s smile is wry when Michael only snorts in response.

–

Michael trusts him.

–

It’s been a long time since Alex’s hands shook for any reason at all. When his son died – all of him shook, then, and didn’t move for a long time after the trembling stopped. It feels almost like something in him shut down, since then, not letting Alex do much more than drift through the days without taking notice of much around him. It’s better that way; it dulls everything around him to match the hollow in his own body, and that’s just fine.

He feels disconnected. He wishes he was.

–

Numb feels like this –

–

He and Michael don’t talk about the things that matter. It’s the job that’s their first priority, but Alex still reads some amount of concern in Michael’s eyes when Alex finds himself shutting down or off, his hands going still against his thighs while his posture goes lax. He isn’t good at dealing with his thoughts, nowadays, when they all circle back to his mistakes and failures on a continuous loop.

He needs, and he doesn’t know how to express it. He doesn’t know how to hide it, either, because Alex has always been careful but he’s lost too much to carry on his façade when there’s so much to be done. He slips; stares off into space for too long on cold, early mornings and paces the floor in the middle of the night, hoping nobody can hear him. His hands don’t shake anymore, but he’s got a craving that’s all too familiar and no way of getting what he wants.

Michael notices. Alex wouldn’t expect otherwise, but he doesn’t ask Alex about it until the thick of night, shrouded in shadow against a backdrop of stars, standing by the narrow window in the room Alex has outfitted with a cot. “There’s something on your mind,” Michael says. He’d know all about it, Alex thinks, dragging his gaze slowly from the floor to Michael, outlined in black.

He’s never told anyone. “It’s the same as always,” Alex tells Michael. “Just – I’m dealing with it.”

Michael’s weight shifts imperceptibly, one shoe scuffing against the floor. He’s not all that good at asking questions about things like this. When it comes to a plan, logistics, Michael is the best. When it concerns feelings, he finds himself grasping for the words for a long time. Alex notices that.

“This is different,” Michael notes, impatience coloring his voice. “And if you don’t tell at least me what’s going on, it’ll become everyone’s problem. You know we’ve got enough to deal with already.”

When Alex laughs, it’s short and sharp, cut off by his teeth. He remembers the taste, the feeling – he spends nights thinking about it, restless and uneasy. “You don’t want to know about it,” Alex cautions, but it’s more of a test, really, to see how far Michael is willing to go in order to figure this one out. “Trust me.”

The last time Alex said that, Michael only laughed. Now, he nods his head, but he still doesn’t turn and walk away in order to let Alex bury this deep down and pretend it isn’t like a wound he’s constantly edging around. “I do trust you,” Michael confides in him. Alex isn’t sure how much faith he wants to put into that, but Michael’s motives have been far from personal when it comes to Alex. He’s convenient, a good choice for this operation, and Michael hasn’t tried to get rid of him yet. “So I’m asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to trust me enough to let me know what’s going on.”

The silence stretches for a long time before something in Alex decides to give. He has to look away and wet his lips, the words caught in his throat long before they become real.

“There’s this saying,” he starts, “That – that one thing is a gateway into another, you know? Do a little pot, you end up a junkie; steal a car, and you end up killing someone for it the next time around.”

Michael humors him; he stays silent, waiting. “I had a different gateway,” Alex goes on, registering the murmur of his own voice like a distant thing. It doesn’t belong to him; nothing really belongs to him. “His name was Parker.”

Michael only nods like he doesn’t understand the significance of that. Alex only smiles back at him, entirely unfeeling, looking out the window and then back at Michael, avoiding his own reflection. “He was an agent, like me. Coldest son of a bitch I ever met–“

He has to cut himself off, backtrack. There are a lot of things Alex has never said out loud, and he realizes why when an unidentifiable tightness catches him off-guard, deep inside his chest. “He never did anything to hurt me unless I told him to.”

Michael’s posture changes only slightly, but Alex knows how to read him. There isn’t any sign of anger in him, or pity, or surprise; only curiosity. “And I told him to,” Alex continues, closing his eyes. It’s easier to remember things in the dark; that’s where it all took place. Sense memory calls to him, obsessive and unkind. “God, I wanted it so _much_ and it wasn’t ever enough. It wasn’t ever enough, even when – even when–“

Alex swallows and finds himself laughing again, but this time, it’s with humor. Bitter, maybe, but real. “It made me feel different,” he says, words chosen carefully. “Got me out of my head the way I wanted. See, Michael – the thing about our, ah, _arrangement_ …he never had to ask me anything. He knew me. He knew that no didn’t mean a goddamn thing-“

“You know that’s not true,” Michael cuts him off, and Alex is startled by the steel in his voice enough that his own words die out, his head raising to look at Michael again. Still not angry, just troubled. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

A pause; eternity. “You’re messed up,” Michael murmurs. “I get that. What is it that you want-“

There it is, the first note of pity. It hits Alex sourly, making his mouth twist into a scowl, tasting the bitterness like acid. “Don’t condescend to me,” he snaps at Michael, fisting his hands in his jeans, knuckles going white. “This is _why_ – this is why I’m ready to tear my own skin off, Michael. Stop _asking_ me and start _telling_ me-“

“Shut up.”

Alex’s mouth goes dry. Michael says it quietly and the words weigh in the air between them, but he says it like _that_ and Alex blinks slowly at him, suddenly unsure. He’s never experienced something like this before; simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. Michael doesn’t have it in him to kill, but there are other things he’s more than capable of. “I knew you could,” Alex exhales, dizzy with the admission, heart pounding inside his chest like his body still knows how to anticipate this before it even begins. “Are you saying – are you telling me-“

“I’m telling you to shut up,” Michael replies, voice carefully measured, just sharp enough, “And take off your clothes.”

Parker would never be this patient, but then again, Alex would never think to question him or argue. Parker isn’t here, but his body is reacting like his shadow is stretched out across Alex’s frame; there’s already heat flushing him and anticipation building in every nerve, but he’s used to that. He’s used to running on autopilot because that makes it easier, and he hardly realizes he’s undressed until his knees hit the floor on instinct, used to doing it before the command ever came.

Michael seems deeply disturbed, but not enough that he’ll walk away. Alex almost wants to laugh, because Michael is still so noble, even when he’s doing this. He’s still so ready to waste himself on a lost cause because he wants to help, but he can’t always help people and save them and put them back together. Alex swallows thickly against the thought, head bowed forward and his palms laid flat upon the concrete.

When Michael doesn’t say anything for a while, Alex finds his voice, hearing it crack. “Say something,” he rasps, not far from pleading, a tremor working up his back and reminding him of old aches he got in the field and in the dark, a hand resting low on his back. “God, say _anything_.”

“I don’t have to, do I,” Michael murmurs, his voice approaching a tone of awe. It sounds like he’s in disbelief, and any other day, Alex would worry that this is just a game to him; that he’s found a way to put himself above Alex, knowing all about his weakness and his selfish desire in order to humiliate and hurt him. Michael isn’t that kind of person, not right now, and Alex bites his tongue against a helpless sigh. “I don’t have to because you know this already, right? You know what to anticipate.”

Alex nods; not sure if it’s a question, but responding. He’s learned the hard way. “Which is why I won’t give you what you expect,” and when Michael says that, something desperate tugs in Alex’s stomach, his chest. “I’m not that man. I’m not him.”

He only hears Michael crouch down in a whisper of movement and fabric pulled tight across muscle, but when smooth fingers settle on the nape of Alex’s neck, he shudders against the feeling, wondering how close Michael is but unable to bring himself to look. A ragged breath, another, and Michael’s voice whispering “I want you to tell me what you want from me-“

That’s all it takes.

“Hands,” Alex very nearly gasps, trying to keep quiet, his eyes shut against something unnamable. Ten years, and he’s no closer to defining it. “I want – touch me, any way you want, any way you _can_. God, just – please. Please.”

He might not understand Michael’s reasoning for being here or his interest in doing this, but the fact that it’s present and given willingly makes Alex feel like he can’t stay inside his own skin. His breath has already gone shallow, waiting for Michael’s touch to go from careful and considerate to something else; Alex waits for it, but Michael pulls back and tears a soft, fractured noise right out of him. It’s shameful. “Bed,” Michael says, pausing, “Unless you want-?”

He does. “Here,” Alex breathes, knowing that the word is rushed and too quick. “Here.”

“Alright,” Michael tells him. “I can do that. We can do that.”

Alex wants to thank him, but he can’t find the time between his shocked exhale and sharp shudder when Michael puts his hands on his shoulders and tugs, wordlessly telling him to come closer, like he’s testing just how much Alex is willing to surrender. He has no idea, Alex thinks with a heady rush, and pushes his forehead against Michael’s shoulder, looking to ground himself. “It’s your show,” Alex breathes, almost taunting, looking for some sign that Michael is willing to pull away from his control and respect for Alex in order to – to –

“It is,” Michael agrees. “Turn around. Put your back to me.”

That means leaving himself exposed, more vulnerable than he is already, but the request isn’t the worst thing Alex has ever been asked to do. When it comes from Michael, it makes Alex shudder; Michael plans meticulously in order to get the result he wants, and Alex wonders, belatedly, what Michael might want from him. It has to be more than release or sex – it has to be more than the satisfaction of knowing that he’s seen the ugliest things that Alex carries inside of himself.

Michael’s breathing is even but shallow, too far away to be felt. “Don’t move,” he says, too quiet, words murmured against the back of Alex’s shoulder. Michael’s mouth leaves a damp spot, a bloom of sensation, but it fades quickly into nothing. It isn’t much. It’s everything.

“Do you like it this way?” Michael asks him, hands tracing paths on Alex’s back, curious little caresses with cold fingers that Alex shivers under. He doesn’t know how to answer the question or how to say _I’ll like anything you do and anything you tell me to do_. He thinks Michael wouldn’t like that, so he says “Yeah,” on a choppy exhale, chest finally loosening up. This isn’t a ploy, and Alex is ashamed of himself for even considering the possibility. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to kiss you,” Michael says, and it isn’t at all what Alex expected, so when his face is gently angled to turn and Michael’s mouth touches his own, Alex is soft, surprised, mouth opening on a breath; it’s almost so tender that Alex fleetingly thinks he’s imagining it, but then Michael’s hand settles on his shoulder and stays there, assuring. He isn’t making this up.

Alex – he can’t help the laugh that spills into Michael’s mouth and he has to pretend like he doesn’t feel the shape of Michael’s smile. It could be smug, but it isn’t. “You’re a gentleman,” Alex says, voice dry and thin, and when Michael’s fingers tighten on his shoulder just enough to turn the skin white around his grip, Alex thinks _yes_.

It hurts much less than Alex remembers, but he can’t measure up the past against this when things have changed in a way that he never expected; Parker isn’t here, and Alex swallows down the heavy thought of wanting him here. “Quiet,” Michael tells him, and Alex bites down on his lower lip, feeling the skin bruise beneath the pressure.

It’s agonizingly slow for something that should be quick and dirty. If it has to be slow, Alex doesn’t know how to cope with it, shoulders going tight under the pressure of Michael’s hands. He doesn’t say much, for a while – only brushes a dry kiss against the back of Alex’s neck, his fingers twitching restlessly against the concrete. He has no idea what he expected from Michael, but it isn’t this relentless gentleness.

He swallows hard when Michael tips him forward and down, a silent order: bend, and Alex does, heartbeat pounding, face flushing, caught between arousal and a familiar sort of humiliation. He chose that, himself; he could easily let go and be unashamed, but Alex clings to it. There’s no need to pretend he’s anything other than this when Michael skitters feather-light touches down the curved length of his back and along his thighs, muscle straining against skin when Michael pushes.

 _God_ , Alex thinks, with his forehead braced against the floor, palms spread out flat. “Not a sound,” Michael tells him, more somber than demanding, his fingers pressing bruises into the skin of Alex’s inner thighs. His breath hitches; no other noise tears free.

With Parker, it was the general outline of the night that used to stay with him. Every bruise hurt as much as the next one and Alex at least knew what to anticipate; with Michael, it’s the details that stand out, and Alex wants to laugh and laugh and laugh when that thought strikes him. Of course it would be the details.

There’s no rush to it, none – Michael takes his time without dragging it out, and he says “All you have to do is breathe,” so Alex does.

In and out. In and out. This will be over soon.

–

“When I first met you,” Michael says in the aftermath, into the dark, “When I first _saw_ you – you were terrifying.”

He makes it sound a lot like a compliment.

–

Things don’t change, after. It’s taken a very long time for Alex to realize that they rarely do, even in a world that’s filled with turmoil and too many people with too many memories. Michael doesn’t look at him any differently; doesn’t quirk smiles at Alex more than he used to – rarely – but he doesn’t let his gaze linger on Alex with any sign of regret, either. Things happen between people all the time without a fundamental difference in their dynamic, and when Alex thinks about it (he does, all of the time) it doesn’t feel like anything has changed at all.

He knew Michael’s tattoos before he saw them in the flesh. Michael knew his weaknesses before he saw them laid-out in front of him on a cold floor; in the moment between fear and bliss, Alex had thought that this had to be it – the moment to define the space between them even as they bridged it, but nothing of the sort happened.

There’s bad blood between them and too many bitter exchanges to count, and Alex doubts they’ll ever be friends. When he catches himself looking out the window at the stars, absently noting constellations, he turns back. He catches Michael watching him, briefly wondering if Michael mirrors his own expression of lingering awe.

Whatever Alex sees doesn’t matter. Michael’s eyes are intent and his mouth is unmoving, a strange kind of softness to his skin with the pale light spilling out around his shadow.

Alex closes his eyes. Michael’s voice picks up, and the night grows endless.

–

“The night isn’t dark; the world is dark.  
Stay with me a little longer.”


End file.
